


An unnatural sequel

by SecondStarOnTheLeft



Series: Good Intentions 2020 [11]
Category: Persuasion - Jane Austen
Genre: Abandoned Work - Unfinished and Discontinued, Alternate Universe - Modern Setting, Gen
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-30
Updated: 2020-10-30
Packaged: 2021-03-09 03:41:34
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 3,950
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27288082
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/SecondStarOnTheLeft/pseuds/SecondStarOnTheLeft
Summary: Anne would really like to do something other than bounce between her sisters, her father, and her mother's ghost, thanks.
Series: Good Intentions 2020 [11]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1978876
Comments: 6
Kudos: 21
Collections: Good Intentions: Abandoned and Unfinished WIPs





	An unnatural sequel

**Author's Note:**

> This is SO UGLY, of all the drafts I've dumped this past week or two this is the one I like least, and the one I consider _most_ dumped. If I was to come back to this I'd have to scrap absolutely everything about it. So.

Anne always locked up - Lara was getting old now and, deny it as she might, she was nearing retirement. That meant that Anne would get the surgery, probably, which was wonderful.

It was. It really was! Anne hadn’t quite convinced herself yet, but she would. She’d gotten good at that over the years. It was a skill more people should learn, she felt, and then the world might be a softer place.

The walk back to her flat took her past her father’s house, which was not wonderful at all. Father had some kind of sixth sense for Anne’s passing, no matter how much she raced or delayed, and he always sent Elizabeth out to call her in.

_ “Annie!” _

Elizabeth’s screech arrived precisely on cue, right as Anne set down her foot outside the small gate. The crocuses were just shutting up shop for the night under the hedge, and the gates needed a good brushing down and a fresh coat of paint, big and small alike. Anne made a point of noticing things like that to give herself a moment to set herself up for Elizabeth’s… Elizabethness. 

The gate creaked when she pushed on it. Another thing that needed doing, which wouldn’t get done unless Anne organised it and paid for it. Nothing practical did - well, except the grocery delivery. Anne had organised it right enough, as far as setting up a recurring order with Tesco counted as organising, but since she had Father’s bank details (and Elizabeth’s, for whatever that was worth) she’d matched it with a direct debit and set on her way. 

But then she’d had to organize for a cook. And a cleaner. And a twice-weekly housekeeper to try and keep Father and Elizabeth on something approaching the straight and narrow.

“Annie! Get in here now!”

Anne smiled as best she could manage and tucked her bag closer under her arm. If she could just make herself look busy, then maybe she’d get away without having to stay for tea. If she just popped her head in and said hello-

“Annie!  _ Now _ !”

Elizabeth was already inside by the time Anne got to the door, so she made sure to pull it fully closed behind her and slide across the chain. Father and Elizabeth could barely be trusted to lock it, so Anne made a note to do it on the way back out the door.

Father was sitting in his big winged armchair when she stepped into the drawing room, his hair styled and his clothes immaculate despite the fact that he’d not left the house since his morning walk around the back garden. He never did anymore, in the expectation of any friends and acquaintances putting themselves out and coming to him, and never, ever bothering to extend the courtesy of a visit to anyone else.

“You look very worn, Anne,” he said by way of greeting. “Did you deal with your patients dressed like that? When did you last get your hair done?”

“Papa,” Anne sighed. “Any word of Mary?”

“Oh, she’s terribly ill,” Elizabeth said, her rigid posture as gorgeous as ever as she poured tea for herself and for Father - none for Anne, thank God. “But what can one expect? What sort of a place to live is  _ Wales _ , anyway?”

“All sorts of different places, I imagine,” Anne said, which was ignored. “Is it flu she has, or something worse?”

“Possibly something ghastly,” Father said, with a ghoulish sort of delight - he abhorred sickness in most people, and was quite vocal about thinking of it in terms of personal weakness rather than infection or what have you. Anne had sometimes wondered if he’d only gotten so angry about sickness after Mum’s long illness, becoming unkind in his grief, but that was no excuse - there wasn’t anyone who came to Anne for treatment who was there because of what Father termed  _ personal failings _ . 

Mary’s hypochondria had always been the exception to his horrid rule. Anne had never really understood it, but she usually presumed it was because Mary was the only one of them who’d married so far. That seemed to earn forgiveness for a multitude of sins.

“Well, she’s sure to ring me if it’s deathly,” Anne said cheerfully, adjusting her bag. “Nothing else?”

“I suppose you ought to come for dinner Sunday,” Elizabeth said, not bothering to hide how much she’d rather Anne stay very far away on Sunday, and forever. “But do remember to wear concealer, Anne, I can’t eat with you sitting across from me with all those freckles of yours.”

“I have plans, unfortunately,” Anne said, hoping against hope that Emma or Jane would be available for lunch on Sunday so she wouldn’t be a complete liar. She didn’t like lying, but she liked Sunday dinner at Kellynch even less. There was always Emma’s Harriet if things went that far, or she could offer to cover as doctor on call. Literally anything would be better than sitting across from Elizabeth with a plate of whatever horrific concoction Father had decided was fashionable this week going cold on the table. “Next week, maybe.”

“Maybe,” Father said coolly. 

He and Elizabeth returned to their scintillating conversation about something or other that Anne soon lost the track of, and she let herself out without their even noticing. 

She locked the door behind her.

*

Anne had only ever wanted to be a doctor - Mum had encouraged it even when Father had shot it down. Mum had wanted Anne to get out of Taunton, and had encouraged her in everything she’d done. Elizabeth had only cared for looking well and sneering at people, and Mary had been boy-mad from the age of twelve, and Father had approved of both of those avenues.

Anne’s hadn’t been ladylike, though, and for Father, that still mattered. No matter that Mum had been a QC until she got sick, which was hardly  _ ladylike,  _ but the much-missed Anna Elliot had had a way of ignoring everything her husband said and getting away with it. Anne ignored everything her father said, but had never learned her mother’s knack for staying in her father’s good graces. 

Mum had paid for Anne’s uni herself, from her own inheritance, and she’d bought a little flat in Oxford just for Anne’s use, and she’d personally sorted out flatmates in first year who’d ended up as flatmates the whole way through college - Jane’s sister Marie had taken over when Jane finished in fourth year, and Emma’s little friend from home, Harriet, had taken Emma’s room, and Anne had spent a very lonely fifth year missing her two closest friends enormously.

Well. She’d only been lonesome for Jane and Emma. She’d had Fred then, until the end of fifth year. Things had gone a bit awry after that, and poor Marie and Harriet hadn’t been equipped to deal with any of it.

But Anne had always wanted to be a doctor - she still had that, and no matter how much her father complained, he couldn’t take that away from her. She was helping everyone, and she was popular because she was good. Maybe even better than Lara was, at this stage, because Lara was old-fashioned and, well, old. Anne was looking forward to taking over the practice if only so she could modernize.

But she still missed the chances she’d thrown away to come home, because those chances would’ve given her a bloody good excuse not to waste her weekend driving all the way to blasted Llanelli to look in on Mary in her  _ ill health.  _ Just because she was a doctor didn’t mean she wanted to waste her time searching for something wrong with her perfectly healthy sister, who would plead hysteria and beg a prescription for Valium, like some turn of the century damsel who needed laudanum for her nerves. Anne had never known there to be a single thing wrong with Mary, save the time she threw herself down the lower half of the stairs in a fit of temper and broke her arm. 

Mum had frightened the temper out of Mary after that. Anne still remembered it fondly, because even Elizabeth hadn’t been terrible for a few precious weeks.

*

Mary’s house was just down the road from her in-laws’, about five miles outside Llanelli, and it was always an absolute mess. The boys were rowdy little things, true enough, but Mary had never made even the slightest effort to make them tidy up after themselves, and she made even less effort herself. Charlie did his best, but he was away at work all day, and Mary was invariably lounging about in a fit of illness so he had to cook, clean, shower, help the boys with their homework, put them to bed, and tend to whatever needs Mary presented between the hours of six and eleven every night.

Anne had no patience for her sister’s silliness, but Mum had always counseled them to be kind to one another - and to everyone - and Anne did her best to live up to her mother’s example.

The boys burst through the door before she even stopped the car, cheering and shouting and jumping up and down like absolute hellions. Anne loved her nephews enormously, but she wished against all hope that someday she’d arrive down to find that they’d developed manners. 

Charlie chased them out, shouting about strangers until he recognised Anne’s car.

“Oh, Annie!” he said, catching Wally by the belt and CJ by the collar. “I didn’t know you were coming - how are you, girl?”

“Mary is dying again, I hear,” Anne said grimly, tipping up her cheek to accept Charlie’s kiss hello before bending down to bestow similar on the boys. “I said I’d offer my professional opinion to stop her texting me every fifteen minutes right up until three in the morning.”

Charlie looked like he wanted to say something very cutting, but he held his tongue because of the boys. Anne squeezed his shoulder in understanding, and fetched her bag out of the boot - knowing Mary, she wouldn’t be able to manage without Anne all weekend, and would wail and complain until Anne agreed to stay Sunday night and drive all the bloody way home on Monday morning, which would mean getting up at about three o’clock.

Not that Mary would give a damn. Mary never did. All Mary cared about was being cared about, and she’d convinced herself as a girl that the best way to achieve that was to play patient. She certainly played on Anne’s patience, but there wasn’t anyone Anne could say a word to about that. Best not think about it.

“How long are you staying, Auntie Annie?” Wally asked, swinging out of Anne’s overnight bag despite Charlie’s best efforts. “Is it  _ forever,  _ Auntie Annie?”

In another lifetime, it might have been. Had Anne not still been foolish and overwrought when she went on those few dates with Charlie, Wally and CJ might be hers - and they might be better behaved.

Even now, though, Anne was foolish and overwrought about some things, so she only smiled and ruffled Wally’s hair and shared another rueful smile with Charlie.

“Just ‘til Sunday, chum,” she said, nudging past him to get into the house. “I’ve patients who need me at home, I’m afraid.”

“And Grandfather,” CJ said in the hushed, hallowed tones of someone who’d had Walter Elliot’s self-importance impressed on them from birth. Anne had sounded like that once, but now she felt old and weary and very, very bored of it all. “Is Aunt Elizabeth still shouty?”

“Charles,” Charlie scolded, “don’t be unkind. Aunt Elizabeth is simply… Stern.”

_ A bitch,  _ Charlie mouthed over CJ and Wally’s heads, which made Anne smile. She mightn’t have had heart to spare for Charlie Musgrove, but she was glad to have him as a friend. She had few enough of those.

“She’s upstairs?” Anne asked, knowing already what awaited her. 

“Hasn’t left bed since yesterday,” Charlie said, rolling his eyes - it amazed Anne how fond he was of Mary, considering how little patience he had for her faffing about. Mary adored him, too, for all she whined about his not believing her illnesses, and it made Anne a little jealous, sometimes.

Oh well. Bigger things to worry about than that.

Mary was wailing in agony when Anne heaved the big, heavy door of the bedroom shut, and stopped as soon as she realised it wasn’t Charlie who’d come to see her.

“Oh,  _ Annie,” _ she howled, throwing herself down into her pillows like some sort of castaway Oscar Wilde character, removed from Lady Windermere for want of any artistic merit. “Annie, it’s simply  _ unbearable!” _

“Good grief, Mary,” Anne said, as censorious as she dared for fear of actual hysteria erupting from amidst all those damned throws and cushions. “What in the world is wrong now?”

“You must give me something,” Mary said, turning big, imploring eyes on Anne - the same enormous dark eyes as Elizabeth’s, which seemed less fine in Mary’s slimmer, softer face. Mary had always felt Elizabeth’s superiority more than Anne had, probably because Anne had been close enough to Mum not to feel Father’s displeasure quite as much when they were children.

“I shan’t give you a thing if there’s nothing wrong with you,” Anne said firmly, sitting up onto the bed and setting her bag beside her. “Come on, up you get, let’s have a look.”

Mary might have objected had Anne not stuck an old-fashioned glass thermometer under her tongue - a tried and tested means of keeping Mary quiet for long enough to get the exam done. It wasn’t a real exam - hypochondria had no symptoms, after all - but Mary always kicked up a stink if Anne didn’t check her glands and under her arms, so she did all that before releasing her from the thermometer.

“No, your lymph nodes are not obviously swollen,” Anne said. “You don’t have a fever, and your chest is clear.”

“But Annie-“

“Charlie’s parents want you over for dinner, I suppose,” Anne said, “and either you don’t want to go, or you want me to babysit. Which is it?”

Mary had the most churlish, babyish face Anne had ever seen when she was caught in a lie.

“What’s the point of going to a dinner party if you can’t have a drink?” Mary demanded. “And Charlie will  _ obviously  _ have a drink, which would mean I  _ couldn’t, _ but if we were able to stay over-“

“You couldn’t just ask me to babysit?” Anne asked. “Mary. Come now. Why did you have to feign illness?”

Mary feigned illness because it was what she’d always done, but that was no excuse. Lara always coached Anne to be patient with her family, saying it was what her mother would’ve wanted of her, and Anne had always abided by that because Lara had been Mum’s closest friend. Recently, though - well, since she left college - Anne had been growing increasingly sceptical of Lara’s real motives, and of her understanding of Mum’s true nature. Mum had wanted the best for Anne, and Anne was fairly sure that her mother hadn’t considered that to be Taunton. 

No matter. Llanelli tonight, maybe bring the boys into Cardiff tomorrow while Mary was sleeping tonight off, and then maybe, just maybe, she could sneak home on Sunday. It’d be nice to spend a few hours without someone pulling out of her.

*

When Anne was younger and more naive, she’d imagined spending her Sundays on long walks along the coast, or lunch in a rustic country pub, or antiquing in one of those little Midsomer Murders villages.

She had not imagined that she would spend her Sunday afternoon herding her wayward nephews into their grandparents’ house, just because her sister was once more pleading indisposition.

She could have throttled Mary, she really could have.

“Hello, Mrs. M,” Anne said, heaving Wally down onto a couch and hoping he’d stay there. “Lovely to see you.”

“Oh, and you, Annie,” Mrs. Musgrove said, leaning down to kiss Anne’s cheek. “How’s doctoring treating you? Any interesting maladies cropping up in Taunton?”

“Not recently, Mrs. M,” Anne promised her, “but you’ll be the first to know when something rotten does appear, I promise.”

Anne sometimes regretted not being part of Charlie’s family more than she regretted not being Mrs. Charlie, truth be told. The Musgroves’ house was always full of chatter and laughter, and it had the warm, cozy feel of a place that was for living, rather than for display. Then again, while Charlie’s parents were warm and kind and lovely, they were also the most notorious busybodies Anne had ever come across, and she hadn’t the energy for much time in their company.

Best that she was as she was. If she could work through an hour of this, she might be able to sneak away and have time for a bath before bed. God only knew if she’d manage to be quite so lucky as that, though, since her phone was already buzzing in her pocket, which meant Mary felt left out. Or maybe it was Emma, threatening bodily harm to Mary for stealing Anne’s weekend. Or maybe it was Lara, asking if Anne could open up in the morning, there’s a lamb.

She nearly fell over in surprise when she checked her phone. It was her father. Emailing her. Anne hadn’t realised either that her father knew what email was or that he knew a means of getting in touch with her aside from having Elizabeth ring her on the landline she maintained solely for the rare occasions on which Elizabeth rang. That alone would have made her horrifically nervous, even without the subject line:

_ The coming sale of Kellynch. _

“Um,” Anne said. “I’m sorry, Mrs. M, and be sure to pass on my apologies to everyone else, but something urgent has come up at home. I’m afraid I won’t be here for dinner after all.”

Surely things hadn’t reached such a dire point that Father was considering selling  _ Kellynch?  _ He loved Kellynch in a way he loved little else, because it had been in the family for so many years and was a sign of their prestige in the county. Never mind that he and Elizabeth had been living in genteel, credit-card fueled poverty for the past few years, or that he had more creditors than visitors, or that Elizabeth wouldn’t know how to budget if a ledger book smacked her in the face. Anne had been doing her best, and she’d kept what of their finances she could under control…

God, Father sneered at the Musgroves for being beneath him, said that Mary had married down! But Mrs. M would never, ever be in a position where she’d have to sell the damn Lodge out from under them!

The idea of selling Kellynch was unbearable to Anne - she hadn’t lived there for longer than two months at a time since she left for college, but it had been Mum’s house, the last place aside from her old practice that still felt like Mum’s. Anne couldn’t understand this at all. There had to be some other way.

She didn’t even think to tell Mary before she took off. She always packed up her overnight bag as soon as she got up, so she’d have a better chance of sneaking off, and she was grateful for that habit now. It meant she could be on the road back to Taunton within twenty minutes of that ridiculous email, and she could have Lara on the phone within twenty-five.

_“_ What do you mean, you _knew?!”_

*

Lara Russell was supposed to be Anna Elliot’s best friend. She was Anne’s godmother. She had been neighbour to the Elliots of Kellynch for longer than Anne had been alive.

And she was a  _ traitor. _

The only reason Anne wasn’t furiously angry was because Mum would have wanted her to be forgiving, probably. She tamped down the anger just as she had at the end of fifth year, and she steeled herself for what was to come.

Namely her worst nightmare.

Father had found a buyer for Kellynch, a man who’d made a fortune in shipping or ferries, Elizabeth hadn’t known for sure. Adrian Croft, his name was, Ade for preference, and his wife was Sophia. Sophia Croft, née Wentworth. Fred’s older sister. 

Anne would have been at their wedding, had it come six weeks earlier.

Anne couldn’t trust Father and Elizabeth to manage their manners enough to not insult the Crofts when handing over the keys. It was easier to face her own silly feelings than it was to hope that Father could be polite for more than ten minutes. Doubtless Father would insult them somehow, because they wouldn’t fit his narrow definitions of style and good looks, and nothing else mattered.

So Anne. She just hoped Sophia Croft didn’t look too much like her younger brother. She could handle that, of course she could, but she’d rather not have to. The only thing that could be worse would be for Sophia Croft to recognise Anne as Fred’s Nasty Ex.

No, actually - the very worst thing would be for Sophia Croft to know Anne had handed Fred’s ring back. That would make Anne an even worse prospect than Elizabeth to hand over the keys.

“I still don’t understand why you didn’t tell me,” she grumbled, working very hard indeed at not being angry with Lara. “I don’t understand why he told you and not me, but I really don’t understand why you didn’t tell me as soon as you knew.”

Turned out Anne only had access to the  _ discretionary  _ accounts - not to the savings, and not to the accounts which should have been housing all the income from the rental properties. Properties which had all been sold off within the past five years, and not a word said to Anne, because all the income from those sales went to service debts. 

There was no point in being angry, of course, because even if she confronted Father about it all he wouldn’t ever see himself as anything but entirely right. He was always right. Anne had learned that as a little girl, and she’d never really outgrown it.

She couldn’t understand it, though! How in the world had Father and Elizabeth sunk themselves so deep into debt that they had to sell the house? The other houses she didn’t care about, but Kellynch was their home! Father’s pride and joy! Surely he’d had enough sense to manage things so he wouldn’t lose the house. Surely Elizabeth had… 

Well, no. That would be expecting Elizabeth to do something that didn’t serve her own vanity, and she hadn’t done anything of the sort in years. 

“Annie?”

Lara was leaning forward, wringing her hands, and Anne was so annoyed that she didn’t even have it in her to sooth Lara’s worries. Let her worry - she’d been part of this whole mess. Anne didn’t know if she could forgive that.

“Do you know who the Crofts are, Lara?” Anne asked, bolting the front door of the surgery. “Did you know when Father agreed to sell to them?”

“I’m not sure what you mean, Annie.”

“Well, Mrs. Croft’s maiden name is Wentworth,” Anne said. “I know this because I should have been at their bloody wedding. With her brother. Frederick.”

Lara paled. So she hadn’t known. That made Anne feel a little better, but not much. Lara was the only person who knew how long it had taken Anne to get functional again, after Fred, and Anne was relieved to know that Lara wouldn’t have sent her into this particular battle unprepared.


End file.
